Paso Robles and Neighbors: New Releases

From a quality standpoint the greater Paso Robles and Arroyo Grande winegrowing area, which in essence means San Luis Obispo County, has been on a solid roll in recent vintages. The one complaint on the part of producers, though, is that yields have been pitifully low. In fact, the supply of wine is about to get worse as yields were between 25% and 40% lower than normal for many vineyards in 2014.  And the timing couldn’t be worse, say the producers I visited in late June, because consumer interest in the region has never been so high. Tourism is way up, there are more topnotch dining options than ever before, waiting lists for winery offerings continue to grow, and there has never been so little wine to satisfy demand. “The irony is pretty rich,” Eric Jensen of Booker told me, “but it’s becoming less and less funny, especially for the small guys who are getting maxed out financially.”

Eric Jensen's Booker Vineyard

Mother Nature Smiles, Mostly

One has to go back to 2005 to find a vintage that’s sub-par in the area, and even that one was actually not so bad. The reality is that given the consistent weather conditions in the upper Central Coast, the main challenge for growers is to deal with heat, intense sun, and, lately, drought. Unlike nearby wine regions to the south, like the Sta. Rita Hills, which must frequently deal with frost, hail, excessive rainfall and rot, most of the vineyards of San Luis Obispo enjoy relatively benign conditions. High-quality grapes, even when there aren’t many of them, are pretty much a birthright, assuming the grower paid attention to protecting them from the sun. More than a few growers down in Santa Barbara have told me over the years how much they envy the favorable conditions enjoyed by their colleagues in Paso, especially when they’re wrestling with powdery mildew, which can thrive in the cooler stretches of their region.

It pays to have a good financial cushion when there’s a spell of short crops (just ask the Burgundians). And in the case of a number of relatively new Paso operations, that cushion is clearly pretty, well, cushy, as a visit to the wineries and vineyards of producers like Law, Denner, Daou, Halter Ranch and Epoch will attest. On the other hand, there’s a growing number of small, high-quality producers who rely mostly or entirely on sourced fruit, and they are having to grin and bear it as best they can.